Paper Faces on Parade
by Darkenning
Summary: "... instead, I hope, that if I had gone with her, in some other world, I might have made her call it off. That none of it had to happen, and I could have done something, if I'd trusted, as I learned to do later." A glimpse back at the school days of the Dangan Ronpa class. Spoilers for the game implicit.


I wouldn't remember any of this until much later. I suppose that lends it a certain dream-like quality, as well as an element of the unreliable narrator. Did this _really_ happen that way, or is it simply the way that I've chosen to remember it? How am I ever to know? And, perhaps an even better question, what difference would it make if it did?

It was a Sunday. No classes, so I went out to socialize with my classmates. All I wanted was to sit and chat about everything and nothing, without any reminders of the madness that seemed to be eating away at the outside world. I wasn't seeking out anyone in particular, but, looking back at it ... yes, I did go to the places where we'd spent time together, so maybe I was seeking her out, after all. But I didn't find her there. Having found most of our friends already engaged in conversations of their own - conversations or the prelude to something else - and not wanting to intrude, I finally headed into the lunch room to get some food.

And that's where she was, seated alone at a table, tall, pale, and lovely despite the fact that her usually taciturn features were turned down in a frown. Of course, I approached. When a friend is upset, you naturally want to go and find out what's wrong. "Good morning, Ikusaba," I said to her.

She looked up at me, as though startled. "Naegi," she said in reply, and I was genuinely startled to hear how upset she sounded.

"Is something the matter?" I asked. "I'd like to help, if you'll let me."

She shook her head. "I'm not sure if ... but what can it hurt?" Her mood changed in mid-sentence, uncharacteristically. "It's my sister."

"Enoshima-san?" I asked. (Did I know then, as I know now, why they had two different family names? Was what I knew then the truth? I don't remember.) It occurred to me that I hadn't seen her at all this morning, and grew concerned. "Is she okay?"

"No," she answered, very definitely. "No, Naegi, she is very definitely not okay. And I don't think she's been okay for a very long time."

I was flabbergasted. Over the last year and a bit, I'd come to know these two rather well, and I knew two things for sure - that Enoshima generally treated her older fraternal twin sister as only a little better than dirt, most of the time, except for brief periods when she was extraordinarily sweet and kind to her, and that Ikusaba wouldn't ever hear or utter a word of criticism about the way her younger fraternal twin sister behaved. "What happened?"

She shook her head. "I'm not even sure where to start. I think she may have snapped. I don't really know what she's planning, and I'm fairly sure that she's hiding things from me. I mean, it wouldn't be hard for her to do that, but ... I think whatever it is, it's something really, really bad."

Abruptly, she reached across the table and rested her hand on mine. I'd only thought I was flabbergasted.

"Naegi, will you help me, please? I can't talk to her about it on my own. But if you were there, I think I'd be able to do it. Please?"

Of course, what I wanted to do was say 'yes'. Of course I'd help her. She was my friend, and so was Enoshima-san, and when a friend is doing something bad, you want to correct them, after all. Since I remembered this, I've often wondered what would have happened if I had just done that, just trusted her and gone with her, instead of analyzing the situation the way that Kirigiri and Togami and the others had patiently taught me to, and realizing the weak point in her argument, developing a suspicion because of it, and confronting her.

Which is of course what I actually did.

"Enoshima-san?" I asked, hesitantly.

"Yes, I know that sounds crazy, a model, even the Ultimate Model, doing something so terrible, but I -" she started to say.

"No," I interjected. "Are you ... Enoshima-san?"

And slowly, the anguished expression slid off of her face, to be replaced by the hauntingly empty look that I'd only seen a few times before, which was, I now think, the true face of Enoshima Junko. Just as slowly, she reached up to her head, pulled off the black wig, and yet her unbound strawberry blonde locks flow back down around her shoulders.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"... you used too many 'I-statements'," I said. "Your - Ikusaba is a lot more passive in her speech."

She nodded, slowly. "Yes," she said. "She's such a failure as an older sister, that way." Abruptly she was grinning. "You're so clever, Naegi! Why aren't you proud of yourself for being so clever?"

She was right, I didn't feel proud at all. "I, uh ... I guess I'm just more confused by why you did this than anything else?"

"Oh, it was going to be such a clever prank, too! I was going to take you back to our room, and you were going to find her there dressed up as me - it's a lot easier to _hide_ freckles than it is to apply them, you know?" she confided, peeling off a layer of fake skin which had marks which I'd taken for Ikusaba's freckles. "And we were going to have this huge confrontation and everything! It would have been so much fun! And you wrecked it. You wrecked my plan." Slowly, the grin started to bleed into the empty expression.

"I'm sorry?" I said.

Grin again. "Apology not accepted, chump! I'm gonna take a horrible vengeance! I'm gonna destroy all that you care about and all that you are!" Beat. "Jussst kidding!" She bounced up from her seat, twirling around a bit, and almost in the blink of an eye, her hair decs and the embellishments she'd added to her uniform were back on her. "Really, this was a lot of fun! We should do it again some time."

"Right," I said.

"'Til then!" she added, waving as she sauntered out of the room.

Who can know what she was thinking? How much of her plan had she already worked out? What embellishments did that give her the idea to add? Was her decision to kill her sister at least partly prompted by the fact that I never guessed the truth any of the times that Mukuro was pretending to be Enoshima - then or later - but did guess it the one time Enoshima was pretending to be Mukuro? I don't know.

You would think that would make me despair. But ... instead, I hope, that if I had gone with her, in some other world, I might have made her call it off. That none of it _had_ to happen, and I could have done something, if I'd trusted, as I learned to do later.

Foolish optimism is pretty much my only quality. I think I may have observed that already.


End file.
